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New Member

[mod note: posts from several different threads have been merged here, leading to some repetition]

hi All,
First time writing here, and i've got a puzzling question. Had my 3 for about 4 weeks now. in the last week have finally had time to figure out how i'm going to do music. Can use the phone and bluetooth, but also wanted to have a few USB drives so i could have lots of my music at my fingertips. i loaded about 65 gigs on to a drive. it took the 3 about 2 minutes or less to index it all, and i could play anything from it. So i thought all was good, here's the weird thing that has happened 3 times, and i've given up, but thought i'd ask here to see if someone has any suggestions, etc. after leaving the car, and coming back to it, the next morning. i go to put in in reverse, the R does not come up, the camera does not come on, but it does move in reverse, same with D, essentially the screen is locked up. i remove the usb drive, and have to reset the screen. Then everything works perfect, until the next time i put the USB in. I'm flummoxed that this could lock up and / or crash the 3's system. Any insight would be great. Really bummed this simple function seems like something i shouldn't do, for fear of screwing up the cars computer.
thanks.

New Member

Hey guys. this is not about 2.0 or 3.0, but about your desire to have music on USB in that size. I initially tried ~100gig drive. it worked, but probably every 3rd time of getting in the car and starting to drive, it forced me to restart the screen, as it locked up function. I down sized it to 60gigs. it happened less often, but it still happened. It appears that the built in media player can't handle reloading, or loading it everything you stop then start the car. if any one has any advice or a different experience, i'd love to hear it. Super bummed, i can't have all my music on a few drives and with me for all trips, etc.

Active Member

Hey guys. this is not about 2.0 or 3.0, but about your desire to have music on USB in that size. I initially tried ~100gig drive. it worked, but probably every 3rd time of getting in the car and starting to drive, it forced me to restart the screen, as it locked up function. I down sized it to 60gigs. it happened less often, but it still happened. It appears that the built in media player can't handle reloading, or loading it everything you stop then start the car. if any one has any advice or a different experience, i'd love to hear it. Super bummed, i can't have all my music on a few drives and with me for all trips, etc.

I have used two different 256GB flash drives, on USB 2.0 and the other 3.1. I haven't had the screen lock up. The only problem I have is that it has to re-index every time I start the car. I don't think it matters what size. The USB 3.1 re-indexes in 2 minutes while the 2.0 does it in 3+ minutes.

Active Member

For drives that large, USB 2.0 / 3.0 is not the issue, but the filesystem on the drive. Look at page 96 in the manual, they specifically say that they only support FAT32 volumes not NTFS or ExFAT. Technically, FAT32 has a 32 GB partition size limit so any larger drive may not work. There are implementations of FAT32 that will work on larger volumes (up to 2 TB) but they are very device specific. Now, having said that, 32 GB is still a significant amount of music and if you needed more than that then either multiple thumb drives could be swapped out, or a Bluetooth transmitter () and your favorite music player (iPod, etc) would also work.

Member

I've been enjoying my new model 3 for 2 weeks now. Only thing that bugs me a bit is the functionality of a USB drive to use to play music. Previous car had an 8 year old low level Pioneer deck with a USB port, which would instantly allow me to access the functions of an ipod and listen to music, and would also instantaneously have access to music on a USB drive. I have a Samsung 32GB USB 3.1 drive (200 mb/s transfer rate) that I put my music onto as the ipod doesn't seem to work at all in the model 3. The model 3 takes about 10 minutes to index the songs before I can access them, and any folders I created on the drive do not show on the folders selection of the audio player. When I select 'Folders', it basically just lists all songs on the drive. Any ideas on how to make an actual separate folder appear, and tips for having the drive index quicker? Had not for these problems with the audio system, the car would be perfect ...

☰ > 3

I've been enjoying my new model 3 for 2 weeks now. Only thing that bugs me a bit is the functionality of a USB drive to use to play music. Previous car had an 8 year old low level Pioneer deck with a USB port, which would instantly allow me to access the functions of an ipod and listen to music, and would also instantaneously have access to music on a USB drive. I have a Samsung 32GB USB 3.1 drive (200 mb/s transfer rate) that I put my music onto as the ipod doesn't seem to work at all in the model 3. The model 3 takes about 10 minutes to index the songs before I can access them, and any folders I created on the drive do not show on the folders selection of the audio player. When I select 'Folders', it basically just lists all songs on the drive. Any ideas on how to make an actual separate folder appear, and tips for having the drive index quicker? Had not for these problems with the audio system, the car would be perfect ...

Member

I'm very happy that MP3 shuffle is finally here, but whenever I try playing my MP3s the car is still indexing them. It takes ~7-10 min to complete, and it's every time I start the car. Why? My prior cars would index a thumb drive once, then never do it again unless you remove the drive. Many of my short drives are over before indexing completes

Well-Known Member

I've only started playing MP3 files on my Model 3 for about a week, so my sample size is small. It indexed my files the first time I plugged in the flash drive and one other time a couple of days ago. The rest of the time, the files are available to play without re-indexing. I'm using the exact same flash drive as you, but my music collection is only half the size of yours, so I don't know if the difference in behavior is due to the number of files involved?

Moderator

I'm very happy that MP3 shuffle is finally here, but whenever I try playing my MP3s the car is still indexing them. It takes ~7-10 min to complete, and it's every time I start the car. Why? My prior cars would index a thumb drive once, then never do it again unless you remove the drive. Many of my short drives are over before indexing completes

So where does it store the index that it is creating? I would hope that the index isn't 4 GB, but is there a chance that it actually writes the index back to the same thumb drive and it doesn't have room to store it all? And it doesn't give you an appropriate error? I've not played any music from a thumb drive, but it's just an observation with the size you note that you have and the amount of music on it.

Active Member

I had the same problem with indexing of my MP3s so I stopped using the USB drive. I then watch a video that claimed the lossless FLAC music files on the USB was the best way to get quality sound. I gave it a try and the quality was noticeable even compared to premium slacker stream. I only have about 5 albums in FLAC so I am currently not having the indexing problem, but I imagine it will return. I had both the Dashcam and the usb drive connected to a USB hub. I after a couple of trips it would recognize the drive but it would say 0 songs. This happened a few times, so now I have them both in the front two usb ports. It has worked fine for about a week now. I will load it up this weekend in different chunks to see where the indexing problem returns. I also plan to try to install another socket but in the front of the console or run cable from the current socket to the wireless phone chargers. I should be ably to tap into the rear side of the exiting socket and then hopefully install the new socket on the other side.

I lifted this picture form another member to help with my disassembly this weekend but lost the thread to give them credit. Does anyone have photos of the cup holders removed?

Moderator

A bit off topic to the title, but hand in hand with that last post. Here is a video from a friend who tapped into the original lighter socked to add one in the front cubby for power. This leaves the original USB's for Music and DashCam and doesn't use a splitter. Here is a screenshot I captured from this video and the video link:

Active Member

A bit off topic to the title, but hand in hand with that last post. Here is a video from a friend who tapped into the original lighter socked to add one in the front cubby for power. This leaves the original USB's for Music and DashCam and doesn't use a splitter. Here is a screenshot I captured from this video and the video link: View attachment 18300

Member

Hmm, I haven't thought about the index location @GDN . I will experiment by making space on the drive or getting a bigger drive.
FYI, I've got the drive in the front left USB port and not via a hub. The right port is another drive for DashCam. For TeslaPad wireless charging I ran this under the trim from the cigarette lighter.

Member

I hadn't maxed out the drive... it was only 60% full (24.1GB free). So it's not a space issue for the index. I did find a few dozen .m4a files, so I deleted those to make it only .mp3 files and it still has indexing every time the car starts. It's 4905 songs all in the root directory (no folders), formatted FAT32.

Moderator

I've got a friend with a 3 that did your same retrofit, but didn't take the console out. You've got to be super careful, but he used a speed bit to cut the hole where you did. He tapped power at the cigarette lighter in the back of the console.